"The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There is no innocence. Either way, you're accountable."
— Arundhati Roy

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04 April 2013

Updates on the Judge Rotenberg Center and Autistic Hoya in the News

Judge Rotenberg Center Updates

For background on the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC), where disabled people are subjected to abuse including painful electric shock as punishment (not the same thing as electroconvulsive therapy), food deprivation, sleep deprivation, and other forms of torture, see my page with JRC resources.

Today, Nancy Weiss announced that "the New York State Department of Education is requiring that JRC stop using the GED 3A and the GED 4 (the two electric shock devices currently in use) on any New York State student within 30 days. While we don’t have specific figures, it is assumed that about half of the people at JRC are New York State residents. This is an important step."

You can read the NYSED letter, dated 12 March 2013, at one of the following links:

Click here for the original scanned PDF, which is not text accessible.

I also mentioned a few months ago that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) also sent a letter in December to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services, prohibiting any federal Medicaid money from going toward any person who lives at any facility that uses electric shock interventions, even if the person in question isn't being shocked.

You can read the 14 December 2012 CMS letter (as well as its 11 July 2012 predecessor) at one of the following links:

On Friday 5 April 2013, I will be presenting a paper co-written by myself and Adam Gluntz entitled "Deconstructing Rhetoric on Disabled (A)Sexuality" for the annual DC Queer Studies conference at the University of Maryland, College Park. This year's theme is Debilitating Queerness, and will explore the intersections of critical disability, gender, and queer studies. (Alyssa of Yes, That Too will also be presenting.) If you're in the DC area, registrations is free and open to everyone!

2 comments:

Not necessarily. I made the comment to differentiate between "aversive shock therapy" and "electroconvulsive therapy" (sometimes called electrostatic therapy) as the two are frequently conflated and confused. That said, I do not condone any coercive or forced treatment with ECT on anyone, but I do recognize the right of people who make voluntary, fully-informed decisions to receive ECT to access it. Research has demonstrated some positive effects from ECT, but the side-effects can be potentially veyr harmful.Hence, people do have the right to choose not to receive it or to receive it. No one should ever be forced, coerced, or pressured into any kind of treatment or medical procedure, but informed, and consenting people do have the right to access any treatment they have chosen for tmselves. (Please excuse typos; on phone.)

Hi! Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. I manually approve comments, so sometimes it takes a few weeks, months, or even years to find and approve comments. This delay is normal. (Note that I also don't publish every comment, since this is my personal blog.) Unfortunately, anonymous commenting isn't available anymore since it resulted in over one million spam comments in a short period.

Autistic Hoya strives to be

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I believe in spreading good ideas and helping start critical dialogue. If you want to share (or republish, or teach, or link to, or quote, or talk about) my writing, please feel free to do so as long as (a) you're not making money off of my writing, (b) you do not edit, redact, or censor my writing (excerpts and quotes are fine),(c) you leave my name on whatever you republish or share, (d) you link back to this website or the specific page it came from, and (e) you shoot me an email letting me know where/how you shared my stuff. (If your use of my stuff meets these conditions, you automatically have permission and don't need to ask.) I strongly disprefer fully republished posts, but am not opposed in principle. If you want to share something from this site that I didn't personally write, shoot me an email so I can contact the actual author. If you want to use my writing for any purpose not covered by these conditions (i.e. you will make money off my writing), please ask me and do not assume you have my permission.

Header Image

Photo by Kory Otto-Jacobs, taken March 1st, 2013 in Farragut Square Park, Washington, DC, United States, for the National Day of Mourning vigil for disabled people murdered by family members or caregivers. This is an annual observance that was originally organized by autistic activist Zoe Gross in 2012 following the murder of 22-year-old autistic man George Hodgins by his mother.

This is a cropped, horizontal banner style black and white photograph depicting one of the vigils and its participants (who are of various races, genders, and dis/ability statuses), including Kerima Çevik, Nuri Çevik, Patrick Cokley, Yoshiko Dart, Chad Carson, Linda Finder, Barbara Platt, Taylor C. Hall, and Samantha Bodwell, who is holding a large poster with a photo and the name of Benjamin Barnhard. Lydia Brown (that's me) is in the middle with their back to the viewer. Many participants are holding cameras, video, recorders, or phones. There is an American Sign Language interpreter. This picture shows about 16 people.

Boring legal stuff

Links offsite are not to be construed as endorsement or acceptance of the ideas and opinions expressed therein. Nothing that I have written on any part of this website represents in any way any of the official opinions, beliefs, policies, or platforms of any organization, institution, or entity of any kind with which I am now or have at any time been either formally or informally affiliated or associated, nor is any content from this website endorsed, condoned, or approved by any such organization, institution, or entity except where explicitly stated by such an organization, institution, or entity on its own publication or website. I do not warrant that access to this website and its contents will be uninterrupted or error free, nor do I make any warranty as to the results that may be obtained from the use of this website and its contents, or as to the accuracy, reliability, completeness, or contents of any content, information, material, postings, or posting responses found on this website or any links to other sites made available on the website.

If you need to serve process to me for whatever reason (I hope you're not suing me?), you can email the documents to me as a scanned attachment if your jurisdiction allows electronic service of process, or to request an address or fax number if your jurisdiction does not. I'm in law school; it'll be a practical learning experience (if not exactly the one I want to have).